Based on this recipe in the book Scandilicious Baking by Signe Johansen
Ingredients
Dough
325ml whole milk
50g butter
500g flour
75g caster sugar
8 green cardamom pods
1/4 small black cardamom (optional)
2 tsp fine sea salt
7g instant yeast
1 egg
Filling
75g butter
80g cashew paste
40g caster sugar
3 tbsp creme fraiche
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp sea salt
Topping
1 egg
almond flakes / pistachio crumbles (optional)
Preparations
Dough
In a small pan, add milk (325ml) and butter (50g). Turn on heat until mixture is almost boiling, and let cool while assembling the other ingredients.
Take out the seeds from green (8) and black (1/4) cardamom pods, and pound to a powder in a mortar and pestle. Alternatively, use a spice grinder.
In a large mixing bowl, sift in flour (500g), and add sugar (75g), cardamom powder, salt (2 tsp), instant yeast (7g). Mix well.
Beat one egg, and add to the dry mixture.
Also add the (now warm and not scaling) milk-butter mixture.
Mix everything well for form a nice dough.
Transfer dough in an oiled container and let it rise overnight.
Filling
You can do this the night before or right before baking.
Simply mix everything together until you get a almost smooth paste. This could take some time depending on how you do it. I used a mortar and pestle.
Assemble & Bake
Take the dough out of fridge and let it rest for 30 min.
Lightly flour a working surface and transfer the dough on top. Slowly roll it out to a rectangle of roughly 30 by 50 cm. (Try to make this as uniform as possible, but in the end they will still taste good however the shape.)
Spread the filling to half of the rectangle lengthwise (15 by 50 cm).
Fold the other half over, and press gently to let out any air bubbles.
Cut the dough into roughly 20 strips, and individually twist and shape them. (There are many ways to do it, such as this, this, or this)
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Place the shaped buns on a baking sheet, cover with cling film and let rest for 15 minutes until they puff up slightly.
Beat one egg for topping, and glaze each bun with the egg wash. Optionally, scatter with almond flakes / pistachio crumbles.
Bake in preheated over for 20 minutes until golden brown.